Donnelly: Tyrone’s hard work has paid off

By Niall Gartland

TYRONE camogie joint-captain Siobhan Donnelly was delighted that their hard work on the training pitch has yielded tangible dividends with a second successive Division Four title.

The Red Hands produced a glittering performance against Wicklow in breezy conditions to take the title last Saturday on a scoreline of 3-16 to 0-10.

But these things don’t happen by chance and they’ve been hugely diligent in their training endeavours under their new management team spearheaded by Paul O’Grady.

Brocagh clubwoman Donnelly commented: “I think we have a new appreciation for the phrase ‘blood, sweat and tears’ this year. We’ve been pushed really hard and challenged to get the best out of ourselves.

“Our management team are great at motivating us to try to be the best players we can be. So we’ve all trained really hard and we’re glad to get our rewards with another league title.”

Their stated ambition was to clinch back-to-back league crowns and they capped off an unblemished group stage campaign with another strong performance when they travelled to Louth GAA’s Centre of Excellence to take on Wicklow.

“We’re delighted, it was another really good performance the whole way through the team. We were brilliant in defence, midfield and attack and this is what we’ve been working towards for the last few months. It’s great to have won it for the second year in-a-row, it was our target to get back and win it.”

Tyrone surged into a 1-9 to 0-3 lead at half-time but the game was by no means over as they had to face into a considerable breeze after the break. But they held firm in the face of the expected Wicklow onslaught and even compounded their advantage in the end up, running out resounding 15-point victors.

“It was the plan to build up a lead in the first half given the wind. We knew we’d have to dig even harder in the second half and fight even more for each other, and I think that really showed in the second half, we had the willingness to put in the work.”

Their star performer on the day was Edendork’s Lara Devlin, who racked up a personal tally of 1-7 in an eye-catching display. They had heroines throughout the field, however, as Donnelly points out.

“From Eimear Colton in nets right up to the full-forward line, I couldn’t fault anyone, I thought everyone was unbelievable. Then Lara had an absolute stormer as she normally does, she’s a brilliant player and took some beautiful scores.”